


Equal Justice

by Ladybug_21



Series: Amendments [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen, West Wing SCOTUS, West Wing Supreme Court
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Evelyn Baker Lang and Christopher Mulready's names became irrevocably linked in history books when they were elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court simultaneously, but the Bartlet Administration's "swap-a-dee-doo" was predated by several years of friendly rivalry and mutual respect between the two jurists.  These ten ficlets — inspired very, very loosely by the Bill of Rights — follow the lives of both future Justices in the years leading up to their confirmations to the highest court in the land.





	1. Freedom of Speech

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of publishing my longer "West Wing" Supreme Court fic [_Penumbra_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8578786), some very generous reviewers have requested that I compose some variations on the same theme: a series of ficlets about the Lang Court over the years, or perhaps a less-platonic interpretation of EBL and Chris Mulready's relationship. I've been toying with some ideas to this effect, and what's emerged so far is this series of ten ficlets, about EBL and Chris Mulready's relationship before being nominated in tandem to the highest court in the land. Each chapter is very, very loosely inspired by a different amendment within the Bill of Rights, and I fully plan to move on to the rest of the amendments once our favorite jurists have been comfortably confirmed by the Senate and are ensconced in their marbled Temple of Justice. If nothing else, this is really my own bizarre love song to the U.S. federal judiciary, and I hope that you enjoy reading. :)
> 
> Any characters you recognize belong to Aaron Sorkin and the other creators of "The West Wing." Any amendments that you recognize belong intellectually to James Madison and constitutionally to all American citizens. Also, as previously disclaimed, I do not have any formal legal training and therefore must beg the indulgence (or gentle correction) of any readers with sounder understandings of American jurisprudence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris identifies a new intellectual rival and is disgruntled.

AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

* * *

Christopher Mulready was not used to being dressed down in public by anyone.

Especially by liberal judges.

Especially by extremely liberal female judges who had only been on the appellate bench for _two months_.

"Did I hear that right?" he grumbled to Art as they emerged from the air-conditioned cool of the hotel lobby into the luxurious Miami sunshine. "She was only elevated to the Fourth Circuit _two months ago_?"

Art immediately pulled the appellate panel program from his briefcase and began skimming it.

"AUSA in Baltimore... District Court judge in Greenbelt, Maryland... yeah, says here that she was confirmed by the Senate in June."

"After how long on the District Court?" Chris challenged him.

Art scowled.

"Only three years. Those Bartlet people certainly don't waste their time when it comes to promoting liberal sycophants like this one."

Chris stopped under the scant shade provided by a palm tree. As pleasant as locations like Florida always sounded when the American Bar Association sent out their annual conference brochures, three-piece suits did not mesh well with this sort of humidity.

"Well, I'll give her this much," he sighed. "She, of all people, deserved to jump to the Circuit level that quickly."

Art looked at Chris, concerned.

"You didn't sound _that_ out of your element..."

"I wasn't expecting her to hit back quite so readily!" Chris ranted. "Yes, it _ended_ more or less balanced, but there were one or two moments where I floundered for what I wanted to say. I _floundered_ , Art. I just don't do that."

"But who wouldn't?" Art said bracingly. "Who wouldn't, when faced with such a barrage of barely supportable arguments that all hinge on somewhat radical readings of the Fourteenth Amendment?"

"Art, you're a professor," Chris grumbled. "You know just as well as I do that any sensible originalist knows the activist line inside and out and can argue handily back against it. I've gotten intellectually lazy, and she exploited that fact."

"So you sit down with the liberals on the D.C. Circuit and have it out with them to sharpen your own arguments! It was one panel, Chris, attended by maybe 40 attorneys. This isn't going to impact the rest of your career. Calm down."

"Hmph." Chris wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and tried to ignore the damp spot developing on his lower back. "The thing about the liberals on the D.C. Circuit is that they're terrible debate partners. Constantly rehashing old and stale arguments that don't even speak to the point you were trying to make, getting horribly defensive about their positions and leaving in a huff the instant they feel too threatened... makes you want to scream, to be honest."

"And _she_ didn't make you want to scream?" asked Art, laughing.

Chris considered this for a moment.

"Not really, no," he said finally. "She made me want to win the argument, badly. But only because she really took the time to engage me on each issue. It wasn't like she had turned up at the panel with a script of liberal talking points planned out in advance. She really listened to what I had to say, and just happened to have a perfect rebuttal for each thought."

"All derived from substantive due process?"

"All derived from substantive due process," sighed Chris. "OK, that _did_ make me want to scream. But I acknowledge that it's a widely accepted means of constitutional interpretation, and she has a First Amendment right to say what she will, even if she's wrong."

Art smirked. Chris noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing. It just sounds to me like you've identified a new intellectual rival."

"Did I really have an old one?" asked Chris, annoyed.

"Not my point. You just sound much more... I don't know, _galvanized_ , than you usually do about these sorts of things. I'd almost argue that you enjoyed having your ego stepped on a little bit, back there."

"I thought you were defending my debate performance a moment ago," said Chris, slightly hurt.

"Look," Art reasoned, "everyone knows you're brilliant, and you're no exception to that rule. But I don't think it's a bad thing if you sometimes have your feet really held to the fire. It's only going to make you even more precise and thorough in your defenses and arguments, the next time you go head to head with someone who's as good at making a case as you."

"I suppose I'll just have to hope that round two is held in private," huffed Chris.

"Private or not, you'd better be ready for it," Art chastised. "She's on the Fourth Circuit, which is in your neighborhood. You definitely can't avoid her forever, and I'm going to make sure that you're ready when you do meet again."

"Can we at least find somewhere air-conditioned to grab lunch, before you begin your debate prep?" The humidity was compounding his hunger, and that was really beginning to make Chris irritated. "As I am really not in the most rational of moods right now, I vote first and foremost for finding food and a climate that doesn't make me want to go all Tom Buchanan on the world."

"Fair enough," said Art, who was from Savannah and didn't mind the heat and humidity nearly as much as Chris did. "But after we do..."

"Yes, yes." Chris sighed. "After that, we'll figure out how exactly I'm going to maintain any semblance of dignity the next time I face off against Evelyn Baker Lang."


	2. To Keep and Bear Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie discusses crocodilians in Florida, an American Bar Association conference, and particle physics.

AMENDMENT II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

* * *

Evie slammed shut the trunk of her car and dragged her suitcase up the front steps of her house, far more excited than was reasonable about the twin prospects of showering and eating something more substantive than overpriced airport food. She wrestled with the lock on the doorknob (and made a mental note for the umpteenth time to have someone come look at it), managed to finally yank her key out of the lock with a number of muttered oaths, and threw her shoulder into the humidity-swollen door to force it open.

"Hello?" she called.

No response. Behind her, insects whirred steadily through the sluggish, golden warmth of the late afternoon, and the dappled patterns of the sunlight through the trees barely stirred when prompted by the bare whisper of a breeze. 

Evie sighed, and lugged her suitcase over the threshold and up the flight of stairs on her own, vaguely annoyed that apparently no one was around to give her a hand, and equally aware that low blood sugar was playing a large role in her irritation. It wasn't until half an hour later, as Evie was toweling her hair off in the kitchen while surveying the available snack options, that Bill Lang wandered into the house from where he had been lying in a hammock strung between two trees in the backyard, proofreading a grant application.

"You're back," he remarked, setting a stack of papers on the counter. "I didn't even hear you arrive."

"I assumed you weren't in," Evie replied as she draped her towel over the back of a kitchen chair and received a series of kisses from her husband. "And it's actually probably a good thing that you didn't try that right when I walked in the door — you would have gotten a mouthful of highly toxic mosquito repellant."

"Florida lived up to its advertised charm, then?" Bill laughed.

"And then some." Evie seized an apple from a fruit bowl on the table and seated herself on a barstool at the kitchen counter. "Mosquitos galore, humidity worse than here, sunburns after five minutes spent outside, the whole nine yards. Fantastic Cuban food — I will give Miami its due credit there. But no gator-sightings this trip, which was a real disappointment. I'm not sure I would have agreed to go all the way down to Florida on such short notice, if someone had told me that I wouldn't see even one gator."

"Ah, come on, Evie, you said yourself that it was an honor to be asked."

"It was, it was." Evie chewed on a bite of apple, frowning slightly. "Well, we'll see if they invite me to speak on some panel next year on my own merits, and not just because Joanne Nishikawa had to drop out at the last minute."

"For all you know, the ABA'll host the conference in Baltimore or D.C. next year, and you'll be able to attend and still sleep in your own bed every night. How did the panel go, anyway?"

"What's this?" Evie asked, pulling the grant application towards her.

"Asking the government for money, yet again. We're trying to send some of our post-docs off to Japan this summer to test some of our theories."

"See if they can smash some particles together to uncover the secrets of the universe?" Evie picked a pencil off the counter and began scribbling edits. "Is there supposed to be a space in the middle of the term 'supercollider' or not, Bill? You should probably choose one spelling or the other, rather than going back and forth. The lack of consistency looks sloppy."

"All right, stop parsing my grant application like you would a draft opinion that one of your clerks handed you." Bill tugged the pages away from a reluctant Evie, who finally relinquished them. "You still haven't said what happened with the panel."

"Oh, boy. Well, the ABA decided to see if they could smash some appellate judges together to uncover the secrets of the Constitution."

"It sounds like it didn't work?"

"Difficult to say, speaking from the perspective of one of the collided."

"Huh. Who was the other particle?"

Evie raised her eyebrows expressively as she swallowed another bite of apple.

"Judge on the D.C. Circuit. Had heard a fair amount about him, but never met him before. _Very_ conservative."

"Yikes. That must have been a headache."

"It was stressful. But kind of an adrenaline rush. Like what I'd imagine it feels like to walk away from a battlefield unscathed after being shot at for an hour."

"Note to self: Do not let you anywhere near the ABA conference next year if it's being hosted at Gettysburg. Unless someone sorts out the Second Amendment beforehand, of course."

"Hmm, a dramatic re-enactment would certainly be a memorable means of discussing states' rights," said Evie, highly entertained by the mental image of Christopher Mulready in a Confederate general's uniform. "No, on balance, it was good. He's really, really sharp, and I felt pretty intimidated at first, given how extremely well-spoken he was; but I'm happy to say that, by most reports, I held my own. I'm glad that I went, at any rate. I think I'd do it again."

"Near-misses and all? I didn't realize you enjoyed flirting with danger so much."

"Says the guy whose job is literally to break apart the building blocks of matter and see what's inside."

"Touché." Bill threw up his hands in defeat. "Well, I can finish editing that funding app later on, unless you do it behind my back before I can stop you, of course. What do you say we collect our wayward offspring from his friend's place, and celebrate your official ABA panel début over dinner?"

"I'm always a fan of dragging the wayward offspring out to dinner, if he'll put up with it." Evie tossed her apple core into the trash and turned to see Bill grinning at her. "What?"

"Nothing. Just that your description of the conference is making me think about some of _our_ laws," Bill explained. "The Newtonian foundations of classical mechanics."

Evie raised an eyebrow.

"Why do I get the feeling that this is some weird form of flirtation understood only by particle physicists?" she said. "OK, the first law is inertia, right?"

"Right: An object remains moving at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force," Bill recited. "And the third law is..."

"Two objects brought into contact exert an equal and opposite force on one another. See, I pay attention to some of the things you say. So, where's the connection between me and Sir Isaac?"

Bill shrugged.

"I just think that maybe it's a very good thing that the ABA decided to collide you and this conservative D.C. Circuit judge. Could set you on an interesting trajectory that you might not have found otherwise. You never know."


	3. Quartered in Any House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris unsuccessfully attempts to manufacture conditions conducive to a second debate with Evie.

AMENDMENT III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

* * *

"The phone's ringing," Shannon announced with all the self-importance of a seven-year-old stating the obvious.

"Thanks, sweetie," Louise said. "Are you going to get that, Chris?"

Chris sighed, tossed his napkin on the table, and got up. He picked up the cordless phone in the darkened hallway halfway through its fifth piercing ring and tucked it under his ear.

"Hello?"

"Chris?" It was Art. "I saw that you left me a voicemail this afternoon and just wanted to follow up. I assume it's about next Wednesday? Can you no longer make it?"

"No, of course I still can," Chris reassured him, moving quietly away from the dining room so as not to bother his family too much. "I just had a suggestion for a potential change to my presentation."

"Go ahead."

Chris hesitated. He had a sudden intuition that Art probably was not going to like this idea much at all.

"I was wondering if you'd be open to the idea of turning the class into more of a debate format."

"A debate format?"

"I present one perspective on constitutional interpretation, and then there's a rebuttal, and the students can discuss the more complete picture afterwards."

Art paused to consider the proposal.

"It's an interesting idea," he acknowledged. "I don't think we'd really have enough time to fit everything in, if you were to present the wealth of information that you brought to the table for last year's guest lecture. But it might be possible to work something out. Can you give me more specifics?"

"Well, I was thinking — and I by no means want to mess up your syllabus, I should add — that maybe I cut _Slaughterhouse_ and _Brown_ so that I can focus more squarely on _Lochner_ and substantive due process, rather than try to fit privileges and immunities and equal protection into the same lecture..."

"Can I believe my ears?" Art laughed. "Chris Mulready, _asking_ to talk about substantive due process?"

"To argue against its overuse to justify reasoning not supported by a textual interpretation of the Constitution, yes."

"Chris, this is the day on my syllabus that we discuss the Fourteenth Amendment as a whole, so that we can get into the grittier issues later in the semester." Art sounded amused. "Why narrow it down to something as specific as substantive due process, and then want to debate it against..."

Art's voice faded as he put two and two together.

" _No_ , Chris," he said firmly. "I'm not inviting Evelyn Baker Lang to engage in a round of verbal fisticuffs with you for the amusement of my class."

"It wouldn't be for the _amusement_ of your class," countered Chris, annoyed. "You don't think that watching two appellate judges discuss one of the most doctrinally controversial means of constitutional interpretation counts as an educational opportunity?"

"Chris, they're 1Ls," said Art, exasperated. "Some of them will be walking into this class without any inkling of what the Fourteenth Amendment even says, let alone how the Supreme Court has chosen to interpret it over the past 135 years. This would be the academic equivalent of throwing them into the deep end of the pool and expecting them to enjoy the experience of nearly drowning."

"Well, they were all smart enough to get into Georgetown, weren't they?" replied Chris crossly. "Maybe you're giving them too little credit."

"Maybe you're forgetting that not everyone had the Bill of Rights memorized verbatim by the time they were in seventh grade," retorted Art. "Law comes intuitively to you, Chris; you've been drenched in it for most of your life. But it doesn't come that easily for everyone."

Chris sighed. He had thought that his idea was a very good one, and had hoped that Art _might_ consider it, in light of his encouragement of Chris's (possibly one-sided) rivalry with Evelyn Baker Lang. But Chris had to concede that Art's logic was sound. It didn't make sense to change a working formula this close to the date of the class, especially since, for all he knew, his proposed debate partner would be busy the day of.

"Would said round of verbal fisticuffs be possible in the future?" he asked instead.

"At an extracurricular event, maybe. But you have to have funding and a solid rationale for why you host these kinds of things, you know."

"I don't think you'd have to pay either of us," Chris frowned. "I mean, we both live within easy striking distance of the law school; it's not like you'd have to quarter either of us in your house to stay below your spending cap."

"Chris," said Art wearily, "you know that I think the world of you, but if you're so determined to spar with Evelyn Baker Lang, just call her up and ask if she wants to discuss the legacy of the _Lochner_ era over coffee, or something. I know that you want to reassert your intellectual dominance in a more public forum, but I can't guarantee you an appreciative audience unless I know that the debate would serve some clear-cut function within the wider Georgetown Law community."

"I just don't see why it wouldn't be considered an educational experience for students!" Chris argued. "Maybe not your 1Ls, but surely, I don't know, some clinic focused specifically on appellate litigation in which issues of constitutional interpretation might be more salient...?"

His thought process was cut short by a crash and angry raised voices emanating from the dining room.

"Is this a bad time for you?" asked Art diplomatically.

"It might be," Chris conceded. "I'll see you on Wednesday, Art. Same lesson plan as last year."

"Sounds good. Thanks, Chris."

Chris dropped the phone back in its charger on his way back into the dining room. From all appearances, Adam had thrown his plastic kiddie utensils at his older sister after some provocation or another, and Louise was scolding them both when Chris re-entered the room.

"Everything under control?" he asked, picking the offending cutlery off the floor before sitting back down.

"Yup. What was that all about?"

"Art Dawson is accusing me of trying to get Georgetown to sponsor my very own vanity project," Chris grumbled, spearing a wedge of potato with his own fork.

"And is he right?"

Chris waited until he had finished that mouthful of his almost-cold dinner.

"Possibly," he admitted. Even if Art had other legitimate concerns to worry about, Chris was sure he'd run into Evelyn Baker Lang for a rematch at some point in time or another. It was just a matter of waiting long enough.


	4. Unreasonable Searches and Seizures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie reaches out to an old friend.

AMENDMENT IV 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

* * *

Jake was the one who brought the article to Evie's attention.

"Something happened to your friend, Mom," he said, frowning down at the newspaper. (Jake's history teacher had demanded that the class read at least the headlines of the newspaper daily, to keep up with current events, so he had pounced on the _Washington_ _Post_ while Evie was still pouring orange juice.)

"May I?" she asked, setting down her fork, and he handed the paper over, flipped below the fold so that she could read the headline printed there.

SUPREME COURT NOMINEE ARRESTED IN CT.; _Mendoza Detained by Police for Several Hours_

"Oh my god," muttered Evie, her hand unconsciously flying up to her mouth in shock as she read.

"Do you think this'll tank his nomination?" asked Jake.

"Not necessarily." The article was not at all forthcoming in details, but it ended by noting that ultimately no charges had been brought against Roberto, with a final quote from the police chief reiterating once more to the reporter that the arrest had clearly been a tremendous mistake on the arresting officers' part. That all seemed promising, she hoped.

"You should call him," Jake said.

"You've been saying that for weeks," Evie reminded him, tossing the paper onto the table. "He's probably got all sorts of people calling him right now, people who are a lot more important and relevant to his life than I am. I don't want to bother him unnecessarily."

"If you say so," Jake shrugged, standing up and depositing his plate into the kitchen sink. "But I seriously don't think that many people flip out just because their friends are trying to be supportive. If he's too busy to say hello, he just won't take your call."

Evie spent the better part of her morning trying to rebut this logic, but by midday, she had to concede that her son was probably right. With a sigh, she looked up the phone number of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

"Office of Judge Roberto Mendoza. May I ask who's speaking?"

"Hi, this is Evelyn Lang," Evie answered automatically. "I'm a former colleague of Judge Mendoza's, and I was wondering if he's in?"

"Just a moment, please." The receptionist put Evie on hold for a few moments before returning. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"Evie Baker," Evie corrected herself. "We worked together on the Scarborough case as Assistant U.S. Attorneys, back in the day."

The receptionist put her on hold again to relay this new information, and within a few seconds, the other end picked up.

" 'Evie Baker from the Scarborough case'?" Roberto's gruff, deliberate voice chuckled into the phone. "You do realize that I still remember who you are, even if you might have fallen off the face of the earth, for all I've seen you around recently?"

"I was just trying to cover my bases!" Evie argued. "It's been over fifteen years since Scarborough, shocking as it is to realize that, and I have a different last name now."

"And, what, we haven't been in touch since then?" Evie could just imagine Roberto shaking his head at her. "How the hell are things? How's the Fourth Circuit been treating you?"

"Wonderful — thank you for your note, by the way, since I don't think I ever followed up at the time. It's been a fantastic experience so far. I can't complain about anything, really."

"Your family?"

"Well, thanks. Yours?"

"Same."

"And how about you?"

Roberto was silent for a moment, and then released a long sigh.

"Yeah, more or less."

"The _Post_ ran a pretty vague article about what happened the other night," Evie said. "Are you OK?"

"The _Post_ ran an article?" To Evie's surprise, Roberto laughed. "Oh, Jesus. Toby Ziegler isn't going to rest until he's hanged, drawn, and quartered whoever leaked the lead."

"Toby Ziegler?"

"My chief White House watchdog. He's trying to impose a gag order on me that covers my entire life from now until whenever the Senate finally gives me a vote."

"Sounds like it'll cramp your style quite a bit."

"What can I say, Evie? This whole thing has been a rougher ride than I'd have thought. I know the Administration is on my side, but I've just about reached the end of my tether with the process. And then this mess in Connecticut..."

"It sounds like you'll be fine politically," Evie reassured him. "No charges pressed, and a public admission of error from the police, according to the article I read."

"Well, be that as it may, my dignity's certainly been put through the mill."

"Can I ask what happened, if you feel like sharing?"

"This is off the record, obviously. Some cops pulled me over and accused me of driving while intoxicated, which, as you well know, couldn't have happened."

This was true: Evie still vividly remembered bringing a bottle of wine over to the Mendozas' place years and years ago, only to be discreetly informed by Laura, to Evie's lasting mortification, that a glass of alcohol could easily kill Roberto, thanks to his hepatitis.

"So they made you take a breathalyzer test?"

"They tried. But I didn't feel like playing along with that sort of bullshit, so I challenged them on what was clearly an unreasonable search, and they responded by charging me with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. And they cuffed me for allegedly getting too confrontational. Cuffed me. In front of my son, Evie. Definitely rates up there amongst the worse moments of my life."

"God." She shook her head. "I can't even imagine, Rob. I'm so sorry."

"Well, it's not the first time I've been pulled over for driving while Hispanic," grumbled Roberto bitterly. "Although this was certainly the first time a pair of White House staffers turned up to say anything about it. The police apologized after they were informed that their grounds for searching me in the first place amounted to a case of medical impossibility. At least they had the courtesy to be ashamed when they were called on the fact that this was a case of racial profiling, pure and simple."

"When you're finally confirmed, you'll be the one calling incidents like these out for what they are, loudly enough for the entire nation to hear."

"Ever the optimist, as usual. Why don't you come up to New York anymore? It's been, what, two, three years?"

"Oh, you know. Work, school, life, so forth. With any luck, you'll be down in my neighborhood soon, though."

"You're still in Baltimore?"

"College Park, actually, since about five years ago – Bill's tenured at U of Maryland now. So we're just outside the Beltway."

"Huh." Roberto sounded amused. "Well, I didn't realize that you were so close to D.C. Next time the folks in the West Wing insist that I come down to Washington to repent for having the temerity to say the occasional word aloud, I'll drop you a line."

"I'll hold you to it," Evie agreed. "And I insist on treating you to dinner once you've relocated down here permanently."

"Sure."

"You still don't sound like you believe it's going to happen."

"I'm not going to believe it until I've taken the oath of office."

"We're all rooting for you," Evie told him. "You'll be phenomenal on the bench, once you get there. Take care, until then?"

"Thanks, Evie. You take care, too."

"And Roberto?"

"Yeah?"

"Congratulations." A smile spread across Evie's face. "I should have called to say as much the instant I heard the news. Sorry it's taken me so long."

"Don't worry about it. It's good to hear from you. See you in the District sometime?"

"See you in the District sometime."


	5. A Witness Against Himself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris writes a book and manages the fallout.

AMENDMENT V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

* * *

"Would you say you thrive on controversy?"

Chris frowned at his host, a fashionably artistic type that fit to a tee the aesthetic of Politics & Prose.

"That's an unusual way to begin a discussion," he countered. "The views that I express in my book are shared by a good many prominent legal voices in the United States, not least by Justice Owen Brady. I suppose they could be considered unorthodox from the standpoint of a nation that has grown accustomed to the liberalism of the Ashland Court, but a few years with a different Chief Justice could shift my views from being 'controversial' to positively mainstream."

"I more meant your title," the Politics & Prose manager clarified, holding up a hardcover copy of the book for the audience to view. " _America's Democrats: The Triumph of Socialism_ seems to be a title that's positively courting controversy. No pun intended," she added after a moment.

Chris shrugged.

"There are plenty of self-identified socialist parties in Europe, for example, that espouse platforms similar to that of the Democratic Party in the United States, in terms of the scope of government nannying and welfare handouts."

"But the term has quite a different meaning in post-Cold War America."

"Does it? Or are you in fact conflating socialism with communism and its various subdivisions — Marxism, Trotskyism, Leninism, et cetera? There are subtle but very real differences between all of these political identifications. You work at a bookstore; I recommend you go read Orwell on the Spanish Civil War, if you don't believe me."

"My point," continued the manager, flushing as a low chuckle rippled through the audience, "is that the average consumer, looking at the title of your book, might not be aware of those differences, and thus would assume that you were accusing the Democratic Party of some of the worse excesses of Soviet-style authoritarianism..."

"And I'm responsible for the discernment of my potential readers?" Chris asked in disbelief. "If they can't use the Internet to quickly clarify that even the most overbearing legislation supported by the British Labour Party is somewhat different from Stalinist purges, then perhaps they shouldn't be reading a lengthy book about the finer details of constitutional interpretation, in the first place."

A few people applauded. The Politics & Prose manager did not look pleased. Chris suspected that this would probably be the last time he would be invited there to give a talk about a book that he was promoting, so he decided to not hold any punches and enjoy the next half hour.

"That was quite the public evisceration," a voice said to Chris as he sat autographing books at a table afterwards.

"Too easy," said Chris, grinning as he looked up at Colin McDonnell. "She probably has her intellectual strengths, but logical reasoning is not one of them."

Colin picked up a copy of Chris's book and flipped it open.

"Could make for a good Christmas present," Chris suggested.

"I'm surprised you didn't dedicate it to Roy Ashland, just to twist the knife a little more," Colin said wryly. "Or Jed Bartlet, for that matter."

"Hmm," Chris smiled. "How about your court's own resident Ashland?"

"Evie Lang?" Colin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she'll have a field day if she ever reads this. I'd probably come into my office one day to find a thoroughly annotated edition on my desk, flagged with a million little post-it notes and oozing red ink from the marginalia."

"You don't like her?"

"Oh, of course I like her! Lovely person. But she lives and breathes unenumerated rights, and she'd find your book positively toxic, if a copy ever ended up in her possession."

"Well, like I said, if you're looking for crowd-pleasing holiday gifts..."

Colin snorted, and then, checking to make sure no one else was approaching Chris to get an autographed copy of the book, he leaned closer.

"Chris, what the hell were you thinking, writing something like this?"

"Free speech is unambiguously guaranteed us by the First Amendment, is it not?"

"You know what I mean," Colin scowled. "This is exactly the kind of thing that could get you in trouble down the line."

"How so, 'get me in trouble'? Judges write books all the time about constitutional interpretation, and no one ever asks them to recuse themselves over it..."

"The Senate, Chris." Colin shook his head. "You're one of our best and brightest, and you're not even fifty. But you keep pulling stunts like this, and there's no way you'll ever end up on the Supreme Court."

Chris raised his eyebrows.

"The odds of ending up on the Supreme Court are... infinitesimally small, to say the least," he pointed out. "And there's no way in hell I'd get nominated under the current administration."

"There will be other presidents."

"I know, but why tailor my life to accommodate a scenario that is almost beyond a doubt never going to happen?" Chris reasoned. "I felt that I had something important to say, so I said it. It seemed like a more sensible thing than holding back in the off-chance that Jed Bartlet woke up one morning, learned that Ashland had dropped dead, and decided that I'd be a great candidate to fill his seat."

"Well, I'm glad one of us feels you did the right thing. Damn it, Chris, you might as well have written a statement explicitly detailing your mission to overturn _Roe_ , this is so lacking in subtlety. Remember, you're the one who'll have to explain yourself to the Judiciary Committee, if you're ever up before them again; and given the fact you've just outlined your entire judicial philosophy, the only reason they'd even hold a hearing for you is so that Pierce can slam you with everything he's got."

"I'm not sure that's comforting. I've heard he's not above making threats involving two-by-fours."

Colin sighed.

"It's your life, in the end, so you can joke about it, if you must. I just wish you hadn't decided to act as such a compelling and _voluntary_ witness against yourself."

"It's not self-incrimination, Colin. Opinion, however controversial, is not a crime."

"Try telling that to the Senate minority. Jesus. With you and Owen Brady on the Court..." Colin shook his head. "Well, it was an excellent fantasy, while it lasted. You're on your own, now."

"You sure you don't want a copy of my book for Baker Lang?" Chris asked as Colin started to move away from the table.

"Go to hell."

Chris laughed, but part of him was suddenly very, very afraid that Colin was right. Of course he fantasized about ending up on the high court — anyone at his level did — but what if he really did have a chance? And what if his pessimism over the odds of his nomination truly _had_ just precluded a nomination from ever occurring?

Fortunately, a young intern working at the Cato Institute approached the table at that very moment, determined to challenge Chris on the right to privacy in the context of freedom from surveillance, and as the Libertarian was infinitely better at logical reasoning than the bookstore manager had been, Chris was quickly distracted from his worries.


	6. A Speedy and Public Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie writes an opinion and manages the fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate once more, I'm neither an attorney nor a law student, so if any of you are, please forgive and/or correct (nicely) any glaring errors in the below legal reasoning and citations!

AMENDMENT VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

* * *

In Evie's mind, _Drori_ was a no-brainer for any reasonable person. Thankfully, Charlotte Robeson agreed with her line of thinking, even if Colin McDonnell did not.

"Are you _sure_ you don't mind writing this one?" Lottie asked Evie over and over again. "Things could get dicey down the line — you never know."

"It's the least that I can do, since you're joining it," Evie assured her.

Any ruling on parental consent requirements for minors seeking abortions was bound to be controversial, no matter who wrote the majority opinion. Evie was steeling herself for angry op-eds and plenty of name-calling, as it was. But Lottie, being a black woman, would doubtlessly be the target of even greater vitriol than Evie, should her name be the one at the top of the opinion, and as Evie sensed that Lottie was far more anxious about the whole matter, she figured that the least she could do was to divert most of the inevitable heat onto herself.

_To demand that a minor attain the consent of a parent before seeking an abortion devalues the worth of a young woman in a dangerous and demeaning manner. Certain religious denominations that are well-represented within the Plaintiff's home state of Virginia, including the one to which the Plaintiff's family belongs, openly express the opinion that engaging in premarital sex is an act worthy of punishments ranging from shaming to violence. For a young woman to require a parent's consent prior to obtaining an abortion could therefore open her up to threats or acts of physical or emotional abuse from disapproving family members, as happened in the case of the Plaintiff._

"I still think you're giving children too much license," Colin argued over the phone. "They're considered minors for a reason; they don't have enough experience with the world to know what decisions they might regret later on."

"And I think you're giving these young women too little credit," Evie retorted. "Not to mention giving too little credit to the resources provided by Planned Parenthood and numerous other groups committed to ensuring that women seeking an abortion know exactly how various procedures work and what few risks are entailed. Besides, nothing in my ruling _precludes_ minors from seeking their parents' advice on abortion, or the advice of anyone else, for that matter; it only ensures that they won't be _forced_ to do so, if they feel that their well-being could be endangered as a result."

_In addition, by denying consent for an abortion, a parent could also force the young woman to keep the child, thereby significantly decreasing the young woman's chances of finishing high school or attending college, and thus limiting her long-term future options for securing an adequate income with which to support herself autonomously. A thorough and well-cited review of governmental and academic studies that support these probabilities can be found in the various amicus_ _briefs submitted on behalf of the Plaintiff. Given that the parental consent law that would create the potential conditions for these financial disadvantages will never impact boys or men, under the assumption that basic human physiology continues to dictate that only women have the ability to conceive children and become pregnant, we concur with the Plaintiff's argument that preventing young women from seeking abortions, and thus curtailing significantly their opportunities for educational and professional advancement, discriminates uniquely against female minors on the basis of gender, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Commonwealth of Virginia has not proven that gaining parental consent before a minor receives an abortion furthers a substantial state interest that outweighs the discrimination on the basis of gender demonstrated in such situations; see, e.g., the application of intermediate scrutiny to equal protection challenges based on gender in Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976)._

Eventually, Colin gave up trying to talk Evie around.

"Well, do what you feel you must," he told her. "But keep in mind that you'll be judged as harshly as you deserve by the rest of the country, and by your own conscience."

"Then I look forward to my speedy and public trial in the court of public opinion," snapped Evie before she hung up the phone.

Lottie just shook her head when Evie ranted to her about how infuriating Colin was being.

"Look, I have nothing but the greatest respect for Colin," she told Evie, "but, in the end, he's an older white man who's probably voted Republican in every election since Eisenhower was President. You really shouldn't be surprised."

_Lastly, the right to sexual privacy, derived from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and other penumbras of the Bill of Rights, has been well-established and repeatedly validated in the case law of the past several decades; see, inter alia, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972); and Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Once again, Virginia has not demonstrated that its compelling state interest in "safeguarding the sanctity of the parental role in childrearing" outweighs the undue burden placed on minors through the abrogation of this right to privacy, see, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), a burden heightened by the possibilities of physical or emotional harm and educational disenfranchisement. In making a decision on a matter as personally difficult and potentially stigmatizing as seeking an abortion, a young woman in search of guidance beyond that of a medical professional deserves to seek the counsel of those she trusts, rather than the counsel of those whom the state dictates she must consult. We therefore reject the lower court's ruling on the constitutionality of Virginia's parental consent law._

The opinion in _Drori v. Virginia_ , along with Colin McDonnell's attendant dissent, was published at 2:30 p.m. on a gloomy Friday afternoon. Evie put the matter out of her mind so quickly and efficiently — she and Bill had tickets to the theater that night, and Jake had a tournament that took up the rest of the weekend — that she was doubly shocked to find the press swarming around the courthouse when she arrived the next Monday.

"What on earth is going on?" she asked Linda, glancing out the window at the news cameras.

" _Drori_ ," her law clerk replied sullenly. "Hope you're prepared to buckle down and weather this thing — it's gonna be rough. Oh, and don't open any of the letters in your mailbox."

Evie should have taken Linda at her word, but curiosity got the better of her.

"Judge Lang, didn't I warn you not to touch any of those?" Linda sighed, watching from the doorway as Evie tore open yet another envelope and wrinkled her nose at the sentiments expressed within.

"You did," she acknowledged. "I'm certainly getting a lesson in the creativity with which people misspell fairly intuitive four-letter words."

"Give me those," snapped Linda protectively, sweeping the letters off of Evie's desk with furious tears glinting in her eyes. "They're all idiots, Your Honor. Just ignore them."

And she marched out of the office, arms filled with scraps of paper. Evie exhaled slowly and leaned back in her chair, glad that Linda hadn't perceived just how unnerved she was by some of the threats enumerated in the letters that she had received (and why did people invariably feel the need to make such threats in all capital letters?). She wondered briefly if she were being paranoid, but then Linda poked her head back into her office.

"And, just so you know, I'm calling the Marshal's Office _right now_ to let them know about some of the shit — excuse me, Your Honor — that people are threatening in these bile-spewing missives of hate," she raged at Evie. "This is non-negotiable, so please don't even try to argue with me about how you feel fine, you feel safe, nothing's going to happen to you, because, frankly, Judge, you have no idea what these _pendejos_ might try, and the Marshal would agree with me that it's better to be safe than sorry. Goddamn morons."

Linda slammed the door behind her with more force than she probably intended. Evie shook her head, silently thankful for her indignant clerk. As she swung her chair around, her foot brushed an unopened letter that had fallen onto the floor, and, after grappling for a moment with her better instincts, she checked to make sure that Linda was nowhere in sight and slit the letter open. (A quick glance revealed that there were no extended paragraphs typed in caps lock, which was a promising sign; but, then again, she had received some very professional-looking and beautifully articulated letters from the counsels for sundry anti-choice interest groups, threatening various types of professional retaliation for the ruling, and these were perhaps even more terrifying than the garden variety death threat.)

_Dear Judge Lang,_ the letter read: _I hope that I am not the only person to have written to you to thank you for your ruling in_ Drori _. I am a high school teacher who has seen countless promising young women drop out of school due to unplanned pregnancies. Too many have expressed to me their despair at having to abandon their dreams of attending college, and too many have cried in my classroom over beatings suffered from parents angry about their daughters' pregnancies. While in an ideal world, these young women would be able to be completely transparent with their parents without fear of retaliation (or, even better, would be better-educated about contraceptive choices that would preempt such a need for transparency), your opinion is an important first step towards ensuring that my students and many others like them will have the ability to live the lives that they have always dreamed were possible._

The phone rang, and Evie picked it up.

"How are you bearing up under the shellacking?" Lottie asked apologetically.

"Well, it's certainly more of an appellate trial by fire than I had thought it would be," Evie said.

"Yeah." Lottie sighed. "What a first high-profile case. Thanks for bearing the brunt of it."

"It's not all been terrible, at least." Evie picked up the letter and skimmed it over again, a determined smile slowly spreading across her face. "And, by the way, if Colin happens to ask you how my judgment is faring in the court of public opinion, you can inform him on my behalf that the jury is currently hung."


	7. Where the Value in Controversy Shall Exceed Twenty Dollars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie and Chris meet unexpectedly at the opera.

AMENDMENT VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

* * *

Chris sometimes wished that Louise were more game to attend cultural outings with him, but occasionally he was glad that his wife was as crowd-shy as she was.

_"_ _Imaginative new production"?_ he thought to himself as he read through the program notes during the first intermission of the opera, the crease between his eyebrows deepening as his irritation grew. "Imaginative" was certainly one way to describe the past 45 minutes. Louise would have absolutely hated it.

"Gaining any revelatory new insights?"

Chris lowered his program to find Evelyn Baker Lang smiling back at him from where she stood behind the next row of crimson-upholstered seats. It took him a moment to register that it was really her, in the flesh, here at the Kennedy Center; he had imagined, more often than he would have ever admitted, what their next meeting would be like, and his scenarios had always involved microphones and important people from the legal community and a setting other than an opera house.

"Judge Mulready, if I'm not mistaken," she said to him.

"Judge Lang," Chris replied, setting his program aside. "This is quite a surprise. I didn't know that you enjoyed opera."

"I do, generally," she answered drily, "although if this production continues in the direction it's going, I'm not sure tonight is the best standard by which to judge such matters."

"Not your cup of tea?"

"It's a little too _Regietheater_ for my taste, truth be told. Not that I have anything against setting Mozart in a slaughterhouse, in principle, but I have absolutely no idea what point the director is trying to make, if any."

"I think it's safe to say that anyone who disagrees with you right now is lying through his teeth." Chris paused. "I hear you've been deluged with unfriendly letters at the office."

"Colin McDonnell told you, I assume?"

"Yes," Chris admitted. "We're co-chairing an upcoming conference for the D.C. chapter of the Federalist Society. _Drori_ may have come up in passing during one of our conversations."

"I see. Well, I'm sure it'll be good fodder for your conference, if you work through the main points of your new book too quickly. By the way, ' _The Triumph of Socialism_ '?" She smiled skeptically. "A touch incendiary, don't you think?"

"Tell me how the Democrats' penchant for redistributing wealth, promoting excessive government regulation of industry, and handing out welfare benefits without incentivizing citizens to work for them deviates from the functional definition of 'socialism,' then."

"Oh, I'm not saying that the left-wing party in the United States doesn't lean, well, left," she reasoned. "But, as actual socialists in the country and abroad would argue, it doesn't go nearly far enough. Even the Democratic Party understands that it functions within an inherently capitalist system, and that presumption has never been challenged. The government may regulate private industry, or fill voids in society with new programs for the sake of the public good; but no administration has ever challenged the right of private industry to exist, and regulation is certainly not tantamount to co-opting the means of production wholesale. So I'd say you're arguing off a faulty premise. It's shaky on the grounds of pure political science."

"One might argue that there's a slippery slope..."

"One might, but that still doesn't change the fact that what the Democrats want is social democracy, not democratic socialism. And even then, when it comes to the positive rights that any properly social democratic society would be expected to provide to its citizens, we fall far behind most other developed capitalist nations."

"Positive rights?" Chris repeated suspiciously.

"There are plenty of constitutions that not only forbid their governments from denying citizens certain rights and privileges, but also explicitly include the rights to education, to health care, to housing, to unionize..."

"To _unionize_?"

"And to go on strike," she added, grinning at the distaste on Chris's face. "Try reading the South African Constitution sometime. You'd appreciate how many rights are unambiguously enumerated — it leaves very little to the judicial imagination. To return to the point, though, I wouldn't say that socialism has 'triumphed' in the United States by any measure."

"You think I exaggerated... and therefore the title is 'incendiary'?"

"Well, I do think you exaggerated. But the incendiary bit comes from the fact that I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what _connotation_ the term 'socialism' would have for most casual observers in post-Cold War America, regardless of its formal definition."

Chris regarded her for a long moment.

"Are you sitting right there?" he asked, gesturing towards the seat in front of him.

"Oh, no," she laughed, "I'm all the way up in the second balcony. Coming to this was a sort of impulsive, last-minute decision, since I was downtown already, and not much was still available in the way of good seating. I just saw you from my vantage point and thought I might as well descend from the heavens and say hello."

"Well, if you want to stay down here in orchestra, this seat's free," he said, moving his coat off of the seat next to him. "My wife opted to stay home at the last minute, and I couldn't find any takers for her ticket in time."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," he answered. "It's the least I can do, given the fact that Colin and I are planning to rip your opinion to shreds with a pack of bloodthirsty attorneys in three weekends."

"Well, in that case," she said with a grin, tossing her purse and coat onto the seat that would have been Louise's. "Thank you, Judge."

"Chris is fine," he replied. "And may I call you Evelyn?"

"Evelyn, or Evie, whichever you prefer." Evie darted out of the row in which she had been standing and squeezed past a few disgruntled opera-goers to reach Chris in his row, just as the lights began to flash to tell the audience that the opera was resuming shortly. "Ready for Act 2?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Chris sighed.

By the time the curtain fell on the final act, Chris had decided two things: that he never wanted to see another production staged by this director ever again, and that he never wanted to see another opera without Evie there to provide lively commentary during the intermissions.

"I mean, the fact that she had to sing that entire aria while suspended from a _meat hook_ ," Evie was still ranting as they jostled their way through the departing crowd. "With members of the chorus being executed by cattle prod below? That was absurd. Beyond absurd. Franz Kafka would have looked at that scene and asked what the blazes was happening."

"It certainly distracted the listener from the music, that's all I'll say about it."

"I wasn't even paying attention to what she was singing about, I was so concerned she was going to fall off that thing," Evie agreed. "Do you think the singers all had to sign away their right to sue the director for bodily harm, and/or for complicity in artistic atrocities?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Chris smirked. "Surely someone would have alleged by now that this production had irrevocably damaged their reputation, if not? And you know, you _could_ have left an act ago; you were under no obligation to stay and watch Mozart be mutilated."

"The singing was undeniably very good," Evie reasoned. "And the acting. And the orchestra. If only the staging hadn't made me want to tear my hair out, but I guess you can't have everything in life, and I suppose someone out there must have enjoyed it, although I can't imagine who." They stopped at the top of the escalators down to the parking lot beneath the Kennedy Center. "Well, thank you again for the seat upgrade."

"My pleasure. Thank you for joining me." Chris took a step towards the escalators and looked back at Evie expectantly. "Didn't you park down here?"

"Oh, no. Took the Metro."

"I'm sorry," Chris said with a sympathetic laugh. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?"

"That's very kind of you, but I don't want to take you out of your way."

"Really, I insist." Chris stood back and gestured Evie down the escalator before him. "Where are you heading?"

"Up to College Park." Evie turned on the escalator and looked up at Chris. "Feel free to rescind your offer if you live nowhere near the green or yellow lines."

"Columbia Heights isn't too far," Chris shrugged.

"You actually live in the District, then? I would have guessed you were across the Potomac."

"Tenleytown. Not every conservative in the DMV lives in Virginia."

"Fair enough," said Evie. "Thank you, then. I think this means I owe you twice over, between the ride and the ticket."

"You don't owe me a thing."

"I'll contest that," said Evie cheerfully. "I think a jury of my peers would agree with me."

"Ah, but you have no way of knowing if I paid more than twenty dollars for the ticket."

"For an orchestra-level seat at the Washington National Opera?" Evie deadpanned. "This isn't some sort of convoluted confession to having stolen the tickets from the box office, is it?"

"I'll plead the Fifth, on all counts," replied Chris, unlocking his car and opening the passenger side door for Evie.

But of course a mention of the Fifth Amendment inevitably sparked a round of friendly debate about _Miranda_ rights, which in turn led to discussions of incorporation and the Fourteenth Amendment (Chris sensed that most legal conversations with Evie at some point swung back around to the Fourteenth Amendment, in some form or another), and they were arguing enumerated powers by the time Evie noticed that something was amiss.

"We seem to have bypassed Columbia Heights quite some time ago," she remarked suspiciously, cutting Chris off halfway through a sentence.

"Is this your way of trying to distract me from getting to my point about why states' rights indisputably preclude the ability of Congress to legislate anything it pleases under the aegis of the Necessary and Proper Clause?"

"Who's trying to distract whom, now?"

"I'm driving you all the way to College Park," Chris admitted.

"Oh my goodness, Chris!" Evie glanced anxiously at the clock on the dashboard of the car. "This is taking you at least an hour out of your way..."

"It's fine. There's virtually no traffic right now, and you know as well as I do that you would have had to wait for the Metro for ages, if I'd left you there. Besides, I'm enjoying this conversation more than I should probably admit, and cutting things off back at Columbia Heights seemed like a waste. So this is a win-win for both of us."

Evie sat back, surprised but touched.

"Well, I _definitely_ owe you now," she muttered. "Next opera's on me. Bring your wife, too. I promise to find something that's not nearly as bizarre."

"Deal," said Chris, feeling strangely satisfied about everything.

They drove on in silence for a few moments.

"DOMA," said Evie finally.

"What about it?"

"If you're so concerned about enumerated powers, then you'll have to concede that DOMA is highly unconstitutional. Nothing in a plain-text reading of Article I indicates that Congress has the power to regulate marriage, and if you're as strict a constructionist as you claim you are, there's no way you could uphold it, if it came before you."

"That's true," said Chris after a moment. "I subscribe to the notion that a good judge follows the Constitution, even when the result isn't what he would want."

"I think," Evie replied, "that we can agree on that, however 'activist' you find my rulings to be."

They arrived in College Park far too soon, in Chris's opinion. He let Evie off in the parking lot of the Metro station so that she could collect her own car, and drove the rest of the way back to Tenleytown feeling inexplicably giddy.

"You seem like you're in a good mood," Louise said, looking up from a novel as Chris hung up his coat at the front door, humming to himself. "How was the opera?"

"Terrible," he replied cheerfully, giving her a kiss on the top of the head and heading towards the kitchen. "Exactly as dreadful as the _Post_ warned."

Louise's eyebrows shot up, and she closed her book, got up from the couch, and followed Chris down the hallway.

"Please don't tell me that you're back so late because you spent an hour giving the artistic director of the Washington National Opera a piece of your mind," she said wearily as Chris rummaged through the fridge.

"Not at all," he reassured her. "Saving that for another day. Might write a long letter tomorrow, demanding to know what on earth they were thinking."

Louise sighed.

"I guess I'm glad I didn't come with you, then?"

"Not as glad as I am." Chris emerged from the fridge with some cheese and set it on the counter, grinning at his wife. "Not only would you have hated every second of the production, but I also made a new friend because your seat was available."

"Someone who had a better time than I would have, I hope?"

"Oh, no." Chris was now fishing about in a cupboard for some crackers. "She hated the production, too – it really was that awful. But we bonded over our mutual disdain, and a lot of other things. You'd like her."

"Well, now I'm intrigued." Louise might have been jealous, except that Chris really wasn't the cheating type, and she doubted he would be gleefully telling her about this new friend if he were worried about her discovering anything suspicious. "Is she anyone I might have heard of?"

"You're going to laugh at me." Chris set a box of crackers down on the counter next to the cheese, and smiled with a hint of embarrassment. "Remember how much I complained to you about that one judge, after the ABA conference a few years ago?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who has lived in the DMV (District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area) for any length of time knows that the D.C. Metro is the actual worst. Ignore New Yorkers who try to argue that the D.C. Metro is wonderful because it's so comparatively clean and spacious — even taking into account the many faults of the NYC Subway, it's still a better public transit system than the Metro because _at least it actually functions_ with regularity and general reliability. By comparison, if you are bored and in need of a Schadenfreude-filled laugh, check out the "Is Metro on Fire?" [website](https://ismetroonfire.com/) and [accompanying Twitter account](https://twitter.com/ismetroonfire?lang=en). It should tell you something that such sites actually exist specifically to answer this question for District commuters. Just wanted to explain exactly why Chris decided it was reasonable to drive Evie all the way to Maryland, instead of abandoning her to the mercies of the capital's highly dysfunctional rapid transit service.


	8. Cruel and Unusual Punishments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie and Chris are both summoned to the White House under mysterious circumstances.

AMENDMENT VIII 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

* * *

Owen Brady was dead.

Part of Evie still couldn't even wrap her mind around that fact in and of itself, but she had to remember that that was the reality of the situation. She had meant what she had said to Josh Lyman and Toby Ziegler, about their being shishkabobed and set aflame on the South Lawn if they put anyone with her judicial record on the Court, especially to fill the seat of a conservative prodigy like Brady. And she hadn't even needed to spell out for them the impossibility of nominating to that particular seat a woman who had had an abortion, no matter how legal or how unlikely to be acknowledged throughout the confirmation process. That was the pure and simple truth of the situation. She knew that, and they most certainly did.

So why — _why_  — were they asking her to come back to the White House for a third round of this charade?

At least this time she wouldn't have to tell Lottie, who had practically shrieked in excitement on Evie's behalf when Evie had told her on Monday that she would be out of the office because she was being summoned by the folks in the West Wing. Lottie's reaction had been much the same on Tuesday, when Evie had called her to let her know that she would be spending the morning at the White House yet again, and thus would be in late. Awkwardly taking time off work was thankfully not necessary for this third round, because the meeting was at 7:00 p.m., with the President, allegedly. Apparently, Evie had made his short list, which the less-resentful part of her appreciated, even if there was still no way in hell she would ever get the nomination.

At least she had Bill, who of course _cared_ about the politics of it all, but kept her sane by operating overwhelmingly in his own separate world of particle physics, intrigued and completely supportive, but in no way obsessive (like Lottie was being) about this strange dance the Bartlet people were leading her on. Evie couldn't imagine how disastrous everything would be right now if she were married to another attorney who understood the ins and outs of judicial nominations with absolute clarity and demanded to dissect every new piece of information as it became known. It was sometimes a relief to be able to go home in the evenings and distract herself with things not at all related to the federal courts, and she had never felt that so acutely as she did now.

And at least she hadn't really talked to Jake about any of this, because he would either be heartbreakingly optimistic on her behalf, or else downright indignant that all the President's men were taunting his mother with this sort of impossible prize.

"Just tell him that I have a late meeting tonight," Evie suggested wearily over the phone. It was true, technically; there was just no need to mention to Jake that the meeting was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"OK," Bill replied. "Should we wait for you before we eat?"

"Nah, don't bother. I don't think it'll take that long, but I don't want to hold you up, whatever happens."

"Sounds good." Bill paused. "Are you all right?"

"Mm? Yeah, of course."

"Have I ever mentioned how terrible you are at selling anything that smacks of less than perfect honesty?"

"It's just stressful, Bill," Evie complained. "Cruel and unusual punishment, if you will, to pretend there's even a slight glimmer of hope, when there isn't. They're stringing me along, and we all know it, and I just wish it were over and I could move on with the rest of my life."

"I thought you said that one of the guys really seemed to like you?"

"I think he really does. I think he would try to put me on the Court, if he could. But the favorable opinion of Josh Lyman does not change the political situation. They can't nominate anyone more liberal than Brad Shelton, and Toby Ziegler realizes that, at least."

"I don't know who any of the people you just mentioned are, but I hope you realize that we will still love you and be extremely proud of you, no matter what happens. I mean, you sit on the Fourth Circuit, Evie! No one can scoff at that."

Evie was starting to get just the slightest bit weepy, even though she had promised herself not to indulge in any self-pity, but she smiled and brushed away her tears with the tips of her fingers at this.

"Thanks, dear. I'll see you later tonight."

As luck would have it, Evie ran into Lottie on her way out the door.

"Heading home on time, for once?" Lottie asked.

"Trying to beat any traffic back into D.C.," Evie explained.

"Well, good luck, and _please_ let me know when you hear anything more about you-know-what?" Lottie requested, beaming at Evie and then giving her a quick hug.

"Will do," Evie sighed.

"Hey," Lottie scolded her, "you're not allowed to act all down in the dumps until you've gotten a definite no. Chin up, OK?"

"Got it."

Lottie flashed Evie a double thumbs-up and a grin that Evie tried and failed to return.

She was still feeling miffed about the whole situation as she started up her car and began the long drive back to D.C. It was easy for Lottie to be sunny and cavalier about all of this; it wasn't _her_ hopes that were being constantly buoyed and then dashed by alternating flights of fancy and returns to reality. Funnily enough, it wasn't the prestige factor of being on the Supreme Court that appealed to Evie the most, although naturally that, too, had its own allure. It was more in the day-to-day details: the ability to interact directly with more people from courts across the country on a more regular basis, the inevitability of coming into contact with top legal minds from both the United States and the rest of the world, even just the luxury of not having to commute all the way to Richmond.

That last element was pretty key, actually, Evie grumbled internally as she hit a traffic snarl in northern Virginia and was left drumming her fingernails impatiently against her steering wheel. Of course the chance to discuss legal doctrine with the Roy Ashlands and Chris Mulreadys of the world was a powerful draw. But alluring as the opportunity to articulate a strong and staying liberal vision from the highest court in the land might be, that shorter commute was only slightly less strong an incentive on a purely personal level.

Somehow, she made it to the White House with a few minutes to spare and, after haggling with the security onsite, pulled into the parking lot. No sign of Brad Shelton, for once, which wasn't too surprising, Evie reasoned; he had already met with the President and was no doubt now just sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring. She parked her car, got out, and was immediately approached by a young man who looked vaguely familiar.

"Judge Lang?" he asked, extending a hand. "Charlie Young, Personal Aide to the President."

"Pleasure to meet you," Evie replied, offering in return both her hand and as casual a smile as she could muster. "Is this a formality, or has something gone wrong?"

"Not exactly _wrong_ , Your Honor. I was just asked to accompany you to the Oval."

"I see," said Evie, frowning slightly. "Well, thank you for the thought, but isn't it pretty straightforward...?"

"Due to some complicated circumstances, we're going to have to take something of a detour. I apologize." Charlie glanced around the parking lot calmly. "OK, if you wouldn't mind following me..."

After five minutes of skirting through corridors only after Charlie had checked them in advance, Evie was more bewildered than ever. She felt as if she had inadvertently been tricked into guest-starring on some sort of political TV drama that, as it happened, contained more comedy than actual drama.

"May I ask what exactly is going on?" she asked as Charlie peered slowly around a corner.

"Trying to avoid the press," he explained. "We're good; let's go."

Evie rounded the corner with Charlie, confused. Wasn't her _purpose_ in all of this to attract the attention of the press? Didn't her usefulness begin and end with the fact that a glimpse of her in the White House would spook the conservatives on the Senate Judiciary Committee into instantly confirming Brad Shelton? Or maybe it was now the case that, since she'd received the pity spot on the President's short list, the staff wanted to keep it on the down low that she was still entering and exiting the building, lest the Senate Republicans get the wrong idea and explode in the Administration's face for even pretending to consider someone like Evie with any degree of seriousness...

This was getting ridiculous. Evie almost wished that she had politely told the Bartlet White House to go to hell, and then had driven straight home to have dinner with her family.

They walked through a door at the end of the corridor, and suddenly they were in the antechamber outside the Oval Office. A woman with a sardonic expression was just entering from the Oval when Charlie and Evie appeared, and she gave the pair an appraising look, complete with one raised eyebrow, as she moved behind the desk in the office.

"That took you long enough," she said drily. "I was about to send the Secret Service out to make sure you hadn't gotten lost on the Ellipse somewhere."

"It takes twice as long when you have to stop and check around every corner," Charlie retorted, grinning. "Debbie, this is Judge Lang. Judge Lang, Debbie Fiderer."

"Nice to meet you," said Evie, shaking Debbie's hand.

"Charmed," replied Debbie, her flat delivery undercut by a broad smile. "I'll see if he's ready."

As Debbie knocked on the door to the Oval and entered, Evie turned to Charlie.

"I have to confess, I feel like I'm overlooking something pretty significant and pretty obvious to everyone else, going into this," she muttered.

Charlie responded with a smile that was simultaneously sympathetic and a touch too pleased.

"I'll leave it to the President to explain," was all he said in return.

"Judge Lang?" Debbie had returned to the door into the Oval. "He's ready for you."

"Good luck," Charlie muttered to Evie as she took a deep breath and, squaring her shoulders, followed Debbie into the Oval Office.

* * *

Chris was still shaking his head in confusion as he dialed his wife.

"The White House wants me to come over for an 8:00 p.m. meeting with the President tonight," he began without preamble when the line picked up.

"My day's been great, thank you for asking," Louise replied. "What does the President want with you?"

"I have no idea." It was not a phrase that Chris said often, but it couldn't have been more apt at this moment.

"Are you in trouble?" Chris could hear the frown in Louise's voice. "Was it the gays-in-the-workplace case?"

"The White House can't punish me for _Bellington_ ," scoffed Chris, wishing he felt as confident as he was trying to sound.

"Well, I doubt they're inviting you over for tea and crumpets, that's all I'm saying." Louise paused. "You don't think it has anything to do with Owen Brady's seat, do you?"

"Extremely, extremely unlikely." Of course Chris had greeted the news of Brady's death with appropriate sympathy, followed by the inevitable internal thrill of realizing that there was a seat suddenly open on the Court that would need to be filled... until he remembered less than a second later the reality of the situation, and who would be making the nomination to fill that seat. "No, they're going to be looking for a solid liberal-leaning moderate that they can get past the Judiciary Committee without any public embarrassment or fuss."

"Huh."

"You don't sound convinced."

"Well, your friend from the opera has been in the papers," Louise explained to Chris, who, in a state of extreme bitterness, had opted not to follow the whole matter in the news over the past few days. "There's been some speculation in the press as to whether she's a shill or a serious contender — a 'bold choice' for the Bartlet White House, as one columnist put it."

"My friend from the opera?" repeated Chris, stunned.

"Evelyn Baker Lang," Louise clarified unnecessarily.

"I know. Well."

This put a whole new spin on things. Maybe the White House was being pressured by the Judiciary Committee to consider more conservative options, and he was being dragged into this pantomime to act as an ideological counterpart to Evie Lang. That certainly made more sense than anything else.

"Just don't say anything too untoward, Chris," Louise told him. "No matter how frustrated you get."

"I respect the office, even if not its current holder," Chris assured her. "I can't promise that any cheeky staffers will get off so easily, though."

Chris arrived at the White House a good twenty minutes early, just to be safe. When he stepped out of his car, he noticed that a sullen-looking, balding man was waiting for him with a look in his eyes of what could charitably be described as loathing.

"Judge Mulready," said the man in a quiet voice.

"Yes," replied Chris confidently, closing his car door and stepping up onto the curb.

The man glared at Chris for a long moment, then nodded curtly.

"Toby Ziegler, White House Communications Director," he said, not offering Chris his hand. "If you'll follow me, please."

After five minutes of making their way painfully slowly through the hallways of the White House, Chris was beginning to wish he had brought a ball of string with him. It certainly _felt_ like he was being led to the center of the Labyrinth, where a Minotaur by the name of Jed Bartlet was awaiting his arrival. _Cruel and unusual punishment_ , Chris thought to himself vaguely, wondering just how badly he was about to be gored.

"Why precisely are we stopping every three steps?" he asked Toby impatiently as Toby halted, glanced around a corner, and then proceeded.

"Trying to avoid the press," Toby replied in his infuriatingly soft voice.

This made no sense whatsoever to Chris, who suddenly began to fear once more that if he wasn't there to distract the press from the real Supreme Court candidates, he really _was_ in some sort of trouble. He began quickly running through a mental list of things that could have incurred the wrath of the executive branch, checking them off one by one as he reassured himself that none of them were actually illegal.

"The press has a right to report goings-on at the White House," he argued, just to calm his nerves (which argument usually did).

"That's true, but, whether you choose to believe it or not, we both also have a right to privacy from meddling reporters," Toby replied pointedly. He peered into a doorway, sighed impatiently when the woman sitting at the desk within shook her head, then ducked back out and wrenched open the door of a room on the opposite side of the corridor, gesturing Chris in. "I'm going to go figure out what's happening. Please don't wander off, don't talk to any reporters, don't even let the reporters see you..."

"Could I at least have a glass of water while I wait?" asked Chris sarcastically.

Toby bristled.

"I suppose that could be arranged, but are you sure you wouldn't prefer something a bit less _plebeian_?" he snapped. "Tea? Coffee? An exclusive oak barrel-aged 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon?"

"Coffee, please." If Toby Ziegler was going to be snide, then Chris was going to take full advantage of it. "A dash of cream, no sugar. If you can manage it."

Toby stared at Chris, then turned on his heel and closed the door behind him with such force that the glass rattled. Chris wondered fleetingly if there would be rat poison or some other unpleasant substance added into whatever beverage Toby chose to bring him, then looked around the room.

Chris had never been in the White House before, not the proper building, although of course he had been in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building his fair share of times. It was hard not to be impressed by it all. He took a few steps closer to the wall to examine an oil portrait of Teddy Roosevelt, and then moved on to examine all of the other portraits hanging around the room. He had just pulled out a chair for himself and sat down when Toby re-entered.

"Apologies," Toby said softly, handing a paper cup of coffee over to Chris, who stood to accept it. "He's running behind schedule."

"I imagine that happens," Chris replied, sitting back down. The coffee smelled like coffee – or whatever the cheap government excuse for coffee was – so hopefully that was a good sign that drinking it wouldn't be his final action. Chris still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being punished, and it didn't help that his handler for the evening clearly would dance over Chris's grave if he keeled over dead right then and there. Also, he was getting annoyed that this irate White House staffer knew more than he, Chris, did about why he had been summoned to the West Wing in the first place.

"You wanna tell me what I'm doing here?" he asked Toby Ziegler.


	9. Enumeration in the Constitution, of Certain Rights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie receives sundry bits of advice from retiring Chief Justice Roy Ashland.

AMENDMENT IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

* * *

For days afterwards, Evie was startled every time she saw her own face in the footage of the press conference that was being rerun on various news channels. Of course she _knew_ that she had been there, but it had been such an overwhelming out-of-body experience that she could barely remember the announcement itself. One moment, she was signing a copy of the Fourteenth Amendment for Toby Ziegler's infant daughter, at the request of the President; the next, she was stepping off the stage behind an equally stunned Chris Mulready, with a thousand camera flashes still flaring around them like the finale of a round of fireworks. Presumably, somewhere in between lay the bit that modern news media had captured for posterity. When Lottie all but forced Evie to sit down and watch the remarks that she had made from the podium, Evie was pleasantly surprised to discover that she had been not only lucid, but arguably even eloquent in expressing her thanks to the Bartlet Administration, to her family and friends, to her mentors and colleagues, and so forth. All this, and yet while the rolling cameras had recorded everything, her own brain hadn't retained any of it. Memory was a funny thing.

What she did recall was the aftermath, funny little details that shouldn't have stayed with her. Her heel had caught on one of the steps off of the stage, and she only just kept herself from stumbling forward into Chris. Behind her, C.J. Cregg had taken over at the podium, and up ahead, the President was working the crowd of reporters a bit, slowing their little procession's progress out of the room. Evie was immensely relieved to finally cross that barrier over into the relative quiet of the hallways of the West Wing, where the broad smile that she had fixed onto her face for the press could relax into something more organic.

Once the squabbling journalists had been shut out behind them, Chris turned to her.

"This is actually happening," he muttered.

"I guess so, although I still keep pinching myself."

"You're not alone there." Chris glanced sideways at the door they had just entered, clearly still conscious of the throng of reporters lurking on the other side. "You know, I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would be how I got to the Supreme Court..."

"I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would _get_ to the Supreme Court."

"Well, that too." Chris smiled slightly bashfully. "But is it strange to admit that I'm glad it happened this way?"

Evie was by nature the type of person who laughed easily and looked for the best in everything and anyone. She hated being disappointed and so did her utmost to forgive imperfections and enjoy what she could of any situation. But her determination to absolve mediocrity did not preclude her from recognizing excellence. And Chris Mulready, for all his faults, was an undeniably excellent jurist. She had known as much from their first interaction at the ABA conference in Miami, but it was their more recent interactions — after the opera, and then the previous night in the Roosevelt Room — that had impressed upon her the quality and depth of his reasoning. Hammering out constitutional ideas with Chris was daunting, but at the same time thrilling; they spoke the same complex language with equal levels of fluency, albeit in different and occasionally irreconcilable dialects. And it wasn't that her more-than-qualified colleagues on the Fourth Circuit didn't engage her intellectually, only that there was something particularly electrifying about going head to head with someone as brilliant and confident as Chris Mulready, someone who loved the law just as fiercely as she did and would defend his positions with a degree of passion that she could only describe as operatic. Evie couldn't think of a single Justice on the Supreme Court whose mind intrigued her quite so much, other than perhaps the man whose seat she would soon occupy, and she was suddenly overjoyed that Chris would be seated on the bench with her, challenging her by the force of his formidable intellect to be at her own very best every single day of the rest of their careers.

"Not strange at all," she answered, elated. "I'm so glad that it did, too."

Chris looked surprised but extremely pleased, and for a moment, the two of them simply stood there, grinning giddily at each other and feeling beyond lucky to have ended up here together, in this most surreal of circumstances. It took a few unsubtle clearings of his throat for the figure behind Evie to alert her to his presence.

"With apologies for intruding on your nonverbal bonding ritual, I just wanted to extend my congratulations," said Chief Justice Roy Ashland, mostly to Evie, once she had turned around.

"Thank you, Your Honor," said Chris politely, nodding respectfully to the man whose entire legacy he had worked so hard to undermine.

Ashland emitted a noise of acknowledgement, his beetle-black eyes scrutinizing Chris. Then he turned to Evie.

"If I could have a private word?" he asked her, and Chris obligingly stepped away.

Evie had met Roy Ashland several times before, but she still was always star-struck when she found herself standing next to him. Since his elevation to the Court, he had been nothing short of a legal hero for her, as he had been for so many other young, progressive lawyers. Ashland the jurist loomed large as a giant in her imagination, so it was always a surprise to discover that the man, stooped with age, wasn't much taller than she herself was.

"Mr. Chief Justice," she said.

"I'd respond in kind, but I'll cling to my title for as long as they'll let me keep it," Ashland replied. His voice was as raspy and proclamatory as always, but a warmth emanated from it that matched the twinkle in his eyes as he studied Evie. "That said, I'd be as ecstatic as the next person, if those Sphinxes in the Senate accepted your answers to their questions with good grace and let you pass through their gates quickly and relatively unscathed."

"You're leaving me some pretty big shoes to fill, sir."

"Am I?" Ashland chuckled to himself. "Well, here's some advice that my predecessor gave me, once upon a time: Don't try to make your tenure about filling whatever shoes I leave behind. Instead, figure out what you need to do to be the best Chief that _you_ can be, and lead the Court on your own terms. If anything I've done will help you make those determinations, that's terrific; but they sure as hell had better be your own decisions, based on who _you_ are, and not based on what you think I would do, if I were still there. I'd wager that our feet are pretty different sizes, in the first place," he added.

"I'll do my best, Your Honor."

"I know you will," said Ashland, clapping a shaky hand on Evie's arm.

"If I may, sir..." Evie hesitated, not wanting to seem rude. "What made you decide to step down at this very moment? Assuming that the Administration requested that you do so, this seems like a tremendously dangerous gamble on which to stake your retirement, especially given that they've named someone as difficult to confirm as I am."

Ashland cocked his head as he regarded Evie, his lips curling into a bemused smile.

"They didn't tell you?"

Evie shook her head. Of course she remembered the news of the Chief Justice's collapse and hospitalization; she and her colleagues had spent a fair amount of time speculating if this meant that Ashland would finally step down, sorry as she and many of her friends would be to see him leave the Court. But he had surprised everyone by making a full recovery and staying on the bench, and she couldn't see why, without prompting, he would choose to step down now rather than then.

"Jed Bartlet's minions came to me with a proposal," Ashland explained, his expression positively impish. "After they'd sent me a gorgeous display of flowers to express their condolences for my passing, I should add. Nincompoops. Well, like I said, they had the audacity to appear in my chambers and propose that I retire so that they could negotiate my successor onto the Court, parallel to whatever nefarious bastard the Senate Republicans chose to push onto Brady's seat. Crazy idea, wouldn't you say?" he asked her.

"Unorthodox, to be sure," she agreed. "But you said yes, in the end."

"In spite of my numerous reservations, and my discomfort at this obvious breach of the separation of powers on which our nation was founded, I did. They ultimately managed to convince me, the tricky devils."

"How?"

Ashland's glittering eyes crinkled fondly.

"They said they'd name you to fill my seat. You, rather than some spineless moderate who would let himself be bullied into submission by the right and end up kowtowing to their bigoted whims. I didn't know that Jed Bartlet's people had it in them, to make a bold stand for the left like that. But they asked me if I was familiar with Evelyn Baker Lang, because they had a plan to get her on the Court, a plan that would require that my seat be in play. And I knew then that I could afford to let go, because with you on the bench, at least my legacy would be safe."

Evie wouldn’t have known what to say to that even if she hadn’t seemingly lost her powers of speech temporarily.

"They'll get you confirmed, I don't doubt that. They have their ways, their political tricks, their secret backroom bargains — I don't ask, because I'm sure I don't want to know how it all works. But, once you're on the bench, you'll have to deal with _him_ for the rest of your life," Ashland continued, jerking his head aggressively towards Chris, who was by now apparently introducing both himself and his wife to Bill. "Think you're up to it?"

"You know, I think I am, sir," Evie replied.

"Typical reactionary scoundrel," muttered Ashland, glowering. "I read his book – or, at least, as much of it as I could stomach before it ended up in my recycling bin in several pieces. Doesn't like unenumerated rights, that one. What do you say to that?"

"I'd say that the Ninth Amendment makes a pretty incontrovertible argument that rights don't have to be enumerated to exist."

"Good girl." Ashland beamed at her. "I always suspected you had what it took, even before _Drori_. Don't let the gadflies chase you away, however sharply they may sting."

"Thank you, Your Honor. For everything."

Evie wished she could package the full depth of her gratitude into those simple words. Saying anything more would feel unwieldy, but those brief sentiments alone fell far too short of Roy Ashland's illustrious accomplishments. Still, she hoped that the Chief Justice nonetheless understood what he meant to her, what he meant to the entire liberal intellectual community.

"Tush," scoffed Ashland. "I could just as well thank _you_ for this. My complaints about Bartlet's sparrows aside, this is no usurpation of power. I give this heavy weight from off my head, freely and precisely  _because_ I am a very foolish fond old man. The work is not yet finished, but I'm leaving it in your capable hands, and I know you won't disappoint any of us. And now, I've kept you long enough," he decided, waving his hands at Evie. "Off you go, back to your antithesis there, that tiger's heart wrapped in a judge's hide."

Evie shook Ashland's hand once more, and then wandered back across the room, to where her husband and Louise Mulready were commiserating over the quality of writing in the latest _New York Times_ bestseller while Chris looked on, clearly entertained.

"Good chat?" he asked Evie.

"I was feeling a little overwhelmed even before he started dropping Shakespeare into every other sentence," she muttered. "But yes. Very constructive."

"How so, constructive? Liberal battle plans?"

"You could say so." Evie grinned. "Scared?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Judge Lang? Judge Mulready?" C.J. Cregg had apparently abandoned the press to its own devices and was now waiting patiently by the door. "The President wants a few photos in the Rose Garden. If you'll follow me..."

Chris gestured for Evie to take the lead. As she followed the Press Secretary down the corridor, Roy Ashland caught her eye once more, and years later, Evie's enduring memory of the morning would be of the silent applause with which he marked her departure out into the sunlight, carrying the Chief Justice's approval even if not just yet his title.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit it, this chapter mostly exists just because I find Roy Ashland totally hilarious, and I wanted to write in his voice for a little while. Seriously, he's like a grumpier edition of Albus Dumbledore, who gives zero damns about anything other than the Supreme Court and is inclined to quote Shakespeare somewhat unnecessarily at people. This is really all I've got — no longer Ashland-centric fics forthcoming, alas — but I'm satisfied to have gotten that authorial impulse out of my system. :)


	10. Reserved to the States Respectively

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evie and Chris decide to flummox some Senators.

AMENDMENT X 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

* * *

Chris had always fancied himself a reasonably politically savvy person. After all, he resided in Washington, hobnobbed with the legal élite, and socialized with the one or two Congressmen whose ideas he thought were worth hearing out. Even if he had never in his life had any desire to touch elected office, Chris had gone into this whole process convinced that he could navigate the Senate with relative ease on his own. How difficult could it be, really?

And then he met Lisa Wolfe, who proved over and over just how incompetent Chris was at this whole politicking game.

"NO!" Lisa barked at some hapless low-level staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, shoving a schedule back into her hands and sending her scurrying away with her cheeks flushing bright red in humiliation. "No, we are _not_ scheduling Judge Mulready back-to-back with the Senators from Massachusetts and Oregon tomorrow morning. Christ, am I the only one here who understands that this is not supposed to be a freaking suicide mission?"

"With all due respect," Chris interjected, "I think I can withstand the pressure of two consecutive hostile audiences with enough grace to..."

"With all due respect, Your Honor, you can't, because that's not even the issue." Lisa shook her head, scowling. "You're not meeting with either of them this week. Period. Lyndell's chief of staff is openly gay and has made no secret of his desire to disembowel you over _Bellington_. We go in there before you've won the public support of at least one other Senator who's put gay rights at the top of his agenda, and you're toast. And Leung's been pissed at you for the past six months, for that speech that you gave in which you suggested that Asians no longer be considered a suspect class. You need to get one or both of the Hawaiʻian Senators on your side before you can even _think_ about talking to her office, and believe me, getting a thumbs-up from anyone in Honolulu is gonna be a struggle in and of itself."

"So...?"

"Let me think."

Lisa held up her hands and exhaled slowly, her gaze focused downwards at the surface of her desk.

"Shit," she muttered to herself. "OK, Mindy, call White's office, see if we can get Judge Mulready in for a ten o'clock tomorrow morning. She's not gonna slam him quite as hard as Yamada would on the suspect classification issue, for obvious reasons. Maybe Reyes, too, for eleven; New Mexico's still a light enough blue that we can probably get a statement of support without too much difficulty. And... Shapiro. No, scratch that, Franco. Not ideal, but less likely to skewer our man on gay rights than Shapiro or Lyndell are, at any rate. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I don't care when. What time is it?"

"Ten 'til," Chris answered, glancing at the clock on the wall just over Lisa's head.

Lisa swore again.

"OK, we're outta here," she called to her staff. "Mitchell, Davies, and, last but definitely not least, everyone's favorite, the esteemed Senator from Rhode Island. Get that revised schedule for me by the time we're back."

The first two meetings were as easy as Chris had expected they would be — softball questions from two Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee who had loudly voiced their support for his nomination only hours after its occurrence. The visits were really little more than photo-ops, but Chris still appreciated that Lisa was giving him a break this morning, especially given what was up ahead.

"You ready for this?" Lisa muttered to him as they charged through the hallways of the Russell Senate Office Building.

"As ready as I suspect I'll ever be," Chris replied. He had reread Roland Pierce's official biography that morning and was familiar enough with his positions on a variety of issues as the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but considering Lisa's tone, Chris was beginning to wonder if he was grossly underestimating the actual extent to which Pierce hated him.

"I hope that's true," Lisa grumbled, her heels clacking militantly on the marble floors. "Your nomination lives and dies with this next meeting, Judge Mulready, and I'm not saying that to sound melodramatic. You've already hit a low point amongst the Democrats on this committee with _Bellington_ and your book, so gird your loins, and please, _please_ don't give Pierce any more reason to hate you. Who knows, maybe you can somehow make him forget how much he already does."

Their crew rounded a corner and ran straight into their liberal counterparts.

"Josh Lyman," Lisa said with an almost predatory leer as Josh awkwardly scooted from side to side in an effort to avoid running into her. "We meet yet again."

"Yeah," frowned Josh, clearly frazzled. "Really, really looking forward to all of this being over."

Lisa raised an eyebrow.

"You truly know how to charm a girl and keep her affections, don't you," she said sardonically.

"How are things going?" Evie asked Chris in a low voice.

"Mitchell and Davies this morning. So far, so good, but I'm about to be thrown into the lion's den. You?"

"Just met with Arnie Vinick. Nice guy, and surprisingly moderate, but what else would you expect from a California Republican. Who's in the lion's den?"

"Roland Pierce. And, if I survive, I then have to go convince a couple of Hawaiʻians and an Oregonian that I don't hate Asians."

Evie smirked.

"You don't need to look so amused, Evie."

"I'm sorry, Chris, but considering that the first major application of strict scrutiny to a racial classification was in _Korematsu_..."

"But society has changed significantly since World War II, and Asians are now very successful academically and financially, compared to other racial minority groups."

"But that doesn't mean that discrimination doesn't still exist, nor that all Asian American communities benefit from the same privileges in equal measure..."

"Judge Lang," Josh Lyman interrupted, "my apologies, but we should get going."

"Ah." Evie seemed to deflate just a little bit. "Well, good luck with the charm offensive, at any rate, Chris."

"Where are you off to now?"

"Malkin." Evie smiled grimly. "Followed by Webster. Ought to be a fun little outing with the Senators from Virginia. I have the pleasure of meeting with Senator Millbank afterwards, if _Drori_ hasn't already lost me the nomination by then, and I hear that his reaction to my nomination was the word 'no' five times in a row, which I don't believe was a show of support cryptically voiced as a misquote of _King Lear_."

"I see."

"Judge Mulready?" Lisa commanded.

The thing was, Chris really did see, and what he saw was that Evie was as understandably panicked as he was. There was no way that her nomination could survive being slammed over _Drori_ , just as there was no way that his could survive the wrath of all of the Democratic Senators incensed by _Bellington_ and _America's Democrats: The Triumph of Socialism_ and everything in between. He knew damn well that he didn't want to have to walk into Roland Pierce's office alone, and while Chris didn't gamble on principle, he would have bet anything in that moment that Evie Lang felt the same way about the Virginians.

"Judge Mulready, we're going to be late."

Evie flashed him a fatalistic smile and turned to follow Josh Lyman, who was sporting an equally dismal expression.

"Wait," said Chris, "I'm coming with you."

Evie stopped in her tracks and slowly turned back to face Chris, her eyes filled with disbelief and wonder.

"Excuse me?" Lisa said, unimpressed.

"Please let Senator Pierce know that I'm very sorry, but I'll have to postpone my meeting with him," Chris explained, stepping forward to stand beside Evie.

"What are you doing?" she whispered to him.

"Trying to make sure that at least one of us survives this preliminary round of hazing," he muttered back.

"Your Honor," sighed Lisa, clearly on the verge of losing her temper, "We don't have _time_ for this..."

"But, fortunately, I do," Evie cut in. "My meetings with Senators Malkin and Webster don't start for another half hour, and I'd be delighted in the interim to accompany Judge Mulready to Senator Pierce's office."

Lisa Wolfe's jaw dropped slightly.

"What..." Josh sighed impatiently, arms akimbo. "No, Judge Lang, that's really not going to do anything helpful for your nomination..."

"On the contrary, I can't think of anything that would be more constructive for _our_ nomination," replied Evie. "Maybe I can't change Senator Pierce's mind regarding Judge Mulready's less conciliatory writings, but I can at least show my support by being there for him."

"And, conversely, Senators Malkin and Webster certainly won't back down on their concerns regarding Judge Lang's judicial record, but at least they'll know that I'm with her," Chris added.

"Isn't this why you came up with this whole idea, in the first place?" Evie asked Josh. "The deal was that Chris and I would be nominated together, with the assumption that we would be confirmed together, as well. Why wouldn't you want to strengthen the odds of that happening? If we stand with each other before the Senators who we know will be the toughest sells on one side or the other, it's a win for everybody."

The scowl on Lisa's face made it quite clear that she thought otherwise, but Josh sighed, clearly resigned.

"OK, fine, but _please_ keep it to half an hour," he begged. "A little less, if possible, so we can get from Hart to Dirksen in time."

" _Now_ can we go?" asked Lisa pointedly, and she began charging down the hallway again, Josh stalking dejectedly in her wake and mumbling something about the independence of the judiciary.

Evie glanced at Chris, and the two set off after their handlers.

"Thank you for that moment of chivalry back there," Evie said.

"It seemed unreasonable to leave the fate of your nomination in the hands of two angry Virginians." Chris shrugged. "Not even the staunchest defender of states' rights can argue against a federal appellate judge's mandate to interpret the law as she sees fit and expect the states within her jurisdiction to adhere to that ruling, however misguided that interpretation was," he added, his voice gently mocking.

"It's a good thing we're almost at Pierce's office, or I might have retracted my show of solidarity right then and there," Evie riposted, and then sighed. "Chris, I can't guarantee that my being in the room with you will make the Senator any less aggressive."

"And likewise, re Malkin and Webster, but it's still worth a shot."

"Well, it'll be an interesting trial run. There's no way they'll put us on the same panel for the hearings themselves, of course, but at least this takes a bit of pressure off of this round of questioning."

"We can sit in the front rows of each other's hearings, and glower at any Judiciary Committee members who start getting too pushy."

Evie laughed.

"The way I see it, it's all a matter of reminding them that we're a package deal," she joked. "Both or nothing. Two sides of the same coin. Or, as my husband would put it, equal and opposite forces that balance each other. We'll get through this together."

Ahead of them, Josh Lyman turned a corner, and then quickly doubled back.

"Reporters up ahead, waiting outside Pierce's office," he warned them. "And the sight of the two of you waltzing around to these meetings together is only going to turn the next few days into even more of a media feeding frenzy than it already would have been. You ready for this?"

The two judges met each other's eyes, smiling. After all, no one was ever truly _ready_ to be suddenly catapulted from a life of relative normalcy into the celebrity and notoriety of sitting on the highest court in the land. No one could anticipate precisely the burdens of the position, or the frustrations, or the joys. Both Evie and Chris knew that, if all went as planned, they would spend the rest of their professional lives waging an intense and extremely public war of ideas in which they were the rival commanders – exulting in their legal victories, castigating each other bitterly in their extraordinary dissents, painting the future of American jurisprudence for years to come with stroke after bold stroke of soaring rhetoric underpinned by sound reasoning. It only could ever work because they were so perfectly matched: so equally opposed, and yet so astonished and delighted by each other's intellectual brilliance and abiding love for the law. And yet they both were unflinchingly certain that it _would_ work, and that their ideological dichotomy could only make the Supreme Court a stronger and better institution. In light of that conviction, how could they not be ready?

"Your Honors?"

Josh Lyman was still waiting for them. Chris gestured for Evie to take the lead, but she shook her head.

"To take a leaf out of the Chief Justice's book and quote the Bard, now let's go hand in hand, not one before another," she insisted.

And with that, Evelyn Baker Lang and Christopher Mulready walked side by side around the corner and into the view of the press, ready to face together whatever trials awaited them ahead.


End file.
